The lawyer in charge of the royal commission into the home insulation scheme,
Ian Hanger
, QC, has made it clear what he wants out of the $20 million inquiry.

While some partisan supporters hope it will embarrass the former Rudd Labor government over the botched implementation of the $2.8 billion home insulation program, Hanger has said he will not be in charge of a witch-hunt.

A senior Brisbane barrister who was admitted to the bar in 1968, Hanger said he is not interested in a conducting a trial over the program which started in mid-2009 and resulted in four deaths (three in Queensland and one in NSW) before it was shut down in 2010.

“My aim is to find the answers to the questions unresolved in previous inquiries. Put simply – what really went wrong, what made it go wrong and how can this commission assist government and industry ensure that circumstances like the lines we face here don’t happen again," he told the first brief sitting of the inquiry just before Christmas last year.

“While the means by which I may conduct the inquiry may appear similar to a court or tribunal, a royal commission is not between parties and I am not a judge sitting to resolve issues between litigants.

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“Rather, my role is fundamentally to investigate and report and, in the course of doing so, to reach conclusions of fact."

Hanger, who has been a Queens Counsel since 1984 and was awarded an Order of Australia in 2007, is well regarded in Brisbane’s tightly-knit legal community.

“He’s quite a senior silk and one of the lawyers of choice amongst the LNP [Liberal National Party]" a barrister said. “But he’s very competent and even-handed. This appointment was based on merit."

Hanger will find it hard not to enter into the murky world of politics. While public servants have taken up the first few days of evidence in public hearings in Brisbane, next month several high-profile politicians, including former prime minister
Kevin Rudd
, former environment minister
Peter Garrett
and assistant minister
Mark Arbib
, will give evidence on the scheme, which was quickly rolled out to kick-start the economy when the global financial crisis hit in late 2008. The finger-pointing which dominated federal parliament could soon enter the court room.